Quote:
Originally Posted by titanic
Wouldn't negative camber reduce tire traction and cause uneven wear? I am thinking of zero camber for rear and front. Is that a good idea?
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Yes and no...
What happenss is that when the car goes around a corner, the weight of the vehicle shift over to one side and the car rolls and the suspension leans over. By having negative camber the tire will roll ON TO it's meaty section thus allowing more traction when cornering. I'm sure you have seen a set of tires on a car that had the outer sidewall all worn out...that's because the tire is rolling over itself; negative camber will correct that. On the Cayman, the front tires have a tendency of doing that with the factory settings....with H&R's you can get about -1 degree which starts to be good.
If all that you do is long long highway trips then yes, the alignment I suggested would wear the inside of the tires faster than the outsides but since the OP said he wanted to do some DE's, this is a good compromise of handling and longevity.
having 0 degrees of toe in front will allow for very sharp turn in and steering response at the expense of some straight line stability (like on the highway when there are ruts it will want to follow them more). The factory setting has toe in at the front. Some race cars have some toe OUT for even greater turn in.
Toe IN at the rear is very important on the Cayman and 911's if you don't want to spin....the geometry of the suspension in the rear makes the rear wheels toe OUT slightly when cornering hard. Think about that for a sec...if you had zero toe in the rear then were cornering hard, the rear wheels would be pointing OUT of the car like a 4 wheels steering car! needless to say if you lift, you're will spin!
On my car I have about -2.5 degrees camber in front, zero toe, 8.0 caster
in the rear I have -2.05 degrees camber, 1/8" total toe in and ruin my car a little bit on the street and to and from the track and I'll never wear out a set of tires on the street. In fact, I run Toyo RA1's on two sets of wheels (steet and track) just that one set is shaved and the other is full trad depth.
Hope this helps.
Chris